Transparent electrodes are required to be used in a great deal of electronic equipments, such as pixel electrodes in a display device, electrodes of a solar cell used in a display device, and the like.
Indium tin oxide (ITO) is a material used extensively for the production of a transparent electrode. However, due to the insufficient flexibility of indium tin oxide, the electrode manufactured using indium tin oxide is liable to break upon folding the equipment, thereby affecting the performance of a product.
Carbon nanotubes are one-dimensional quantum materials. Carbon nanotubes have several layers to dozens of layers of coaxial circular tubes consisting primarily of carbon atoms in hexagonal arrangement.
Carbon nanotubes can achieve the conductive function because their structures are the same as the lamellar structures of graphite. At the same time, however, carbon nanotubes also exhibit excellent mechanical properties, as well as outstanding strength, elasticity, fatigue resistance, and isotropic properties. Therefore, more and more transparent electrodes are being made of carbon nanotubes.
Needless to say, the above defect would also appear when carbon nanotubes are used for forming electrodes of electronic devices of other non-transparent applications (e.g., electrodes of thin film transistors in a display panel), and no more exemplification is made herein.